236: Don't play dead

Chapter 236: Stop Playing Dead Squeak—

An extremely sharp shriek rang out.

All the transformers lit up simultaneously.

Not electric light.

It was red light.

It was a qualitative change reaction caused by flesh and blood energy overload.

"Ah ah ah ah—"

For the first time.

Ruan Qiushui let out a scream.

Her body was suspended in mid-air, countless red electric arcs wrapped around her like chains.

The transformers turned into powerful electromagnets, firmly sucking the energy field within her body.

This was a backlash.

She wanted to devour Chen Mo, but ended up getting herself stuck in Chen Mo's throat.

"You're... not so great either."

Chen Mo was bleeding from all seven orifices.

He gripped Ruan Qiushui's hand that was plunged into his collarbone, not pushing her away, but instead pulling her forcefully into his embrace.

Their faces were extremely close.

One was as beautiful as a celestial being, yet her face was contorted in a ferocious grimace.

The other's face was covered in blood, yet he smiled madly.

"Since you're here, don't be in a hurry to leave."

Chen Mo's voice seemed to drift from hell.

"This meal, it's on me."

Pfft.

Chen Mo's overloaded heart, at this instant, finally broke through its critical value.

He was going to blow himself up.

Taking this so-called god with him, to become a puddle of mud in the Old City District's sewers.

However.

Just at this critical moment.

A trace of extremely human-like emotion suddenly flashed in Ruan Qiushui's originally emotionless white eyes.

Was that... fear?

No.

It was confusion.

She suddenly opened her mouth and exhaled a breath towards Chen Mo's face.

That wasn't an attack.

It was a ball of faint blue light mist.

The light mist drilled into Chen Mo's nostrils.

In that instant, the world before Chen Mo's eyes changed.

No longer the dark basement, no longer the flickering red electric arcs.

But a sea of flowers.

A blood-red ocean full of Higanbana flowers.

And in the center of the sea of flowers, stood a little girl.

The little girl looked exactly like Ruan Qiushui, but she was holding a worn-out doll and looking at him timidly.

"Gege..."

The little girl spoke.

"Save me."

Boom!!!

In the real world, all the transformers exploded at the same time.

The huge shockwave overturned the entire basement.

Buzz—

The ringing in his ears was like someone had put his head inside a bronze bell and struck it hard.

Chen Mo couldn't feel his limbs.

Before his eyes was a blurry, static image, like an old CRT television with a bad signal.

After several seconds, the image began to flicker, gaining color and pain.

Pain was a good thing.

Dead people don't feel pain.

"Cough..."

Chen Mo moved, and the crisp sound of rubbing ribs came from his chest.

He pushed away half of the transformer casing that was pressing on him and struggled to sit up.

The basement was gone.

All that remained was a huge, smoking crater.

Charred metal fragments and burning insulation oil were everywhere.

The air was filled with a burnt smell of ozone mixed with roasted meat.

The "rhinoceros" was overturned a dozen meters away, like a dead turtle on its back.

"Hey."

Chen Mo picked up a stone and threw it at the car.

No movement.

"Stop playing dead." Chen Mo's voice was hoarse as if he had swallowed a pound of sand, "The car loan isn't paid off yet."

Clang.

The car door was kicked open from the inside.

A greasy hand reached out and gave a middle finger.

"To hell with your car loan..." Ninth Master's voice, choked with tears, came from the deformed driver's seat, "My waist... it's broken, definitely broken..."

Chen Mo spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and propped himself up on his knees to stand.

He swayed.

But he stood firm.

He looked down at his chest.

The skin there was scorched black, like burnt kraft paper.

But the heart beneath the skin was eerily quiet.

Not beating?

No.

It was... dormant.

The previous frenzy, overload, that burning sensation that threatened to incinerate the host, all disappeared.

It was replaced by a cold, abyss-like stillness.

As if it had eaten its fill.

The white figure was gone.

"Where is she?"

Su Qingxue emerged from behind a pile of rubble.

She looked slightly better, except that her expensive combat suit had turned into rags, and there was a cut on her face.

She still tightly clutched the pulse pistol in her hand, its muzzle warily pointed at the surrounding shadows.

"She left."

Chen Mo walked to the edge of the puddle and picked up the dagger that had been blown away.

"Left?" Su Qingxue was incredulous, "With that level of explosion, plus the energy backlash, she could still leave?"

"She didn't suffer a loss."

Chen Mo scraped the mud off the blade with his thumb, "She devoured a portion of energy, and in exchange, spat out something."

"Spit out what?"

"An illusion."

Chen Mo didn't explain further.

The little girl's gaze, that call of "Gege," was like a thorn stuck in his mind.

Was that Ruan Qiushui's true form? Or the residual consciousness of some unlucky soul devoured by the "god"?

Or perhaps, the memories of this damned heart's original owner?

"Gege..."

Chen Mo silently repeated the word in his heart, a cold sneer twisting his lips.

In this world, casually claiming kinship isn't a good habit.

"So what do we do now?" Ninth Master finally crawled out of the car, dragging one leg, wailing beside the scrap metal, "My treasure... my rhinoceros... this is a limited edition..."

"It can't be fixed." Chen Mo glanced at the driveshaft broken in two, "Let's go."

"Go? Where to?"

Ninth Master pointed at the half-collapsed ventilation shaft above, "Up there, it's probably full of company people, or those bounty hunters looking for scraps. We're like turtles in a jar right now, and half-dead ones at that."

Chen Mo ignored him.

He walked to the edge of the deep pit, where an unbroken sewage pipe led deep underground.

"Go down."

"Are you crazy?" Ninth Master's eyes widened, "Below is the Old City District's drainage system, the territory of those 'Hyenas'! Those people eat people without spitting out bones, they're fiercer than rats!"

"Then let's see whose teeth are harder."

Chen Mo leaped, jumping into the dark pipe... Old City District, third underground level.

This was Jiangcheng's forgotten rectum.

All the sewage, garbage, and untreatable biochemical waste from the surface eventually flowed here.

The smell was pungent.

It was the smell of rot, mold, and chemical agents mixed together.

Chen Mo walked at the front, the standing water reaching above his ankles.

Su Qingxue supported Ninth Master as they walked behind.

None of the three spoke.

Only the monotonous sound of footsteps and the dripping water from the distant pipes.

Suddenly, Chen Mo stopped.

He raised his hand and made a shushing gesture.

In the darkness ahead, several red lights appeared.

Those were the infrared scanning beams of bionic eyes.

"Oh, look who it is?"

A mocking voice rang out.

With a clang of metal, five dark figures emerged from the shadows of the pipe.

Friendly reminder: The website is about to be revised, which may cause reading progress to be lost. Please save your 'Bookshelf' and 'Reading History' in time (screenshots are recommended). We apologize for any inconvenience caused!